If you listen carefully to the "Why do you go so slowly...?" message "Polito" sends you on deck three (as heard at 6:49), you can hear just a little taste of the electronic distortion that SHODAN's later speech is swimming in. It's a nice touch that SHODAN is getting so impatient with you that the mask slips a little.
I remember getting to that part when I first played SS2 and thinking "hmm, that's weird". I had been assuming, up until that point, that Shodan was going to make a sudden surprise entrance into the plot by killing Janice Polito as she was talking to me over the comms, then taking her place. Which was almost correct, technically! But after that little mask-slip moment in Hydroponics I started to wonder why Polito was acting so impatient and callous while supposedly being the one to help me out of this mess. Then I think I asked myself "Wait, how does she even know how fast I'm going? Is she watching me all the time...even though I always disable the security system whenever I enter a new area?!" After that point I figured something crazy was gonna happen at any minute. I felt pressured to hurry up and only got more concerned when finally entering the hallway to Polito's office on Ops...when the normally omnipresent music suddenly vanished into dead silence. The perfect "uh-oh" moment that I love to experience in video games.
Children of doom is my favorite ongoing series on all of youtube. You're on my personal Mt. Rushmore of content creators alongside Noah, Hbomb, and Dan Olson. Thank you for the upload!
I'm certain someone has already mentioned this, but people have made their own master servers for dedicated Unreal Tournament servers even before the delisting, so that torch is still being kept alive, just, in a bit more of an unofficial capacity. Also I'm reminded of how there's probably a ton of people who think the Unreal Tournament callouts originated from Counter-Strike or even DOTA 2 of all games.
I fell off the series about eight books in because the writer would introduce characters, forget about them for a few books, then bring them back in and I was just supposed to remember them after hearing nothing from them for literal years.
Wheel of Time was just... not good. You could tell they put a lot of work into it, but the actual FPS combat was laughably clunky and you ended up with WAY too many magic powers, most of which you might use once and then never again.
I mean, in terms of choosing mains? 2007-2010 (with the I-sim restraining bolt officially removed) is now EASY. BioShock, Fallout 3, Riddick 2, Metro 2033. What's hard for that is going to be 2023 (which I currently have marked as Starfield) and especially 2024 (Phantom Fury vs Anger Foot for the main game...?).
@@Volvagia1927 I think it's unlikely to make a fps retrospective on 2007 without talking about Call of Duty 4, the only best seller that has had an equal, if not even bigger, influence than DOOM. Doom popularized and solidified a new born genre, COD4 bent an established, diverse genre into its mold and the industry has just started crawling away from it's shadow.
@@marreco6347 I didn't say he wouldn't at all. He has A BUNCH of side dishes in every episode now. COD 4 is going to be one of those, and would have been my guess for 2007's main dish if he still had the I-Sim restraining bolt.
@@Volvagia1927 It's "most important game", not "favourite game". - 2007 is objectively CoD4 - defined the whole industry for the next decade (and yes that crowds out Halo 3, TF2, Portal & Bioshock but CoD4 was just that big) - 2008: maybe Left 4 Dead? Kicked off a niche genre at least - 2009: Borderlands? Arma 2? (Yeah I know CoD6 came out but it changed nothing from CoD4) - 2010: ?? (Halo Reach? Black Ops? They were popular but I don't think they changed the industry, just continued the Halo 2-3 and CoD4 trains) Some others I'd say are indisputable: - 2000: Deus Ex - 2001: Halo - 2004: Half-Life 2 - 2014: Destiny - 2016: DOOM - 2017: PUBG (Fortnite is 3rd person) And if we're allowing all first person games, 2011 has to be Skyrim. (Although tbh from the mid-2000s onwards "first person" doesn't tell you much - 3rd person shooters are way closer to FPSs than other first person games.)
Y'know, mechanically BioShock Infinite IS kind of a Halo game. Though admittedly closer to Combat Evolved, since while you're stuck with the two-weapon limit, your health is regenerating shields and static health. As for the soldier just going "nah" in SS2, I thought it was hilarious. Admittedly it would've worked a little better if this was Space Quest, with the "nah" coming from the likes of Roger Wilco, but blowing off a would-be god with the same tone you'd use for turning down the offer of a cigarette? That's still pretty fun.
@@TheEvilCheesecake For all the talk of ”Halo clones” I've never seen a single game that actually works similarly to Halo mechanically in a meaningful level. Sure, they have the *surface* of Halo, like CoD copying the 2-weapon thing… but nothing have recreated that combat dance you got with the bungie Halo titles (or even some of 343 ones). I find it strange, we have boomer shooters that are inspired by Doom and other 90s fps, and we have the Half-Likes… we even recently had a F.E.A.R inspired one in Selaco. But Halo-inspired? Absolutely nothing. I find it kinda baffling, surely there's a market?
@@torb-noThere was Splitgate but that died when Halo Infinite released and it never quite nailed the feel of Halo. There’s not one thing that makes a Halo game feel like Halo. It’s many different things working in tandem.
@@sergioizzaqt7707 In the multiplayer realm I think Splitgate is very much what I’m taling about! I’m not looking for exact clones, just games that sort of truly are of the same FPS subgenre (Halo-likes if you will). What I’m missing though, is something truly like that in the single player campaign side of things. Hopefully we’ll see something in time.
My parents were huge wheel of time fans so I’ve read the first nine books and we owned the game. It was solid, all of the places, fluff, and mechanics pull straight from the source material. The game takes the setting and invents a plot and characters to create its own story in it so things like angreal, the ways, and the white tower all exist in the setting fairly close to how it’s represented, but almost all major characters and events only exist in the game to let it explore many of the most interesting locations.
Interesting that they chose a member of the Brown Ajah as the protagonist of a fps game. I get not a Green, since there was no way a game from that era would have handled Warder companions well (and a Green *should* have more than one Warder). But wouldn't a Blue make more sense?
@@orestes0883It’s actually a clever plot point to justify the ammo system. Instead of a mana system or letting her create weaves on demand they use specialized ter’angreal, allowing them to limit what actions the player has access to. Plot wise the main character can’t channel much, so instead became an expert in using various ter’angreal thus brown Ajah. It works much like Doom, with some levels resetting your “weapons” and providing specific options for certain puzzles and combat encounters.
@@karry299 its interesting that you say that, because while culturally women are dominent, it also portrays them as at fault for many of the mistakes and misunderstandings of the series.
@@wgerardiIndeed, I find this recurring criticism rather bemusing. It implies that black & white didactism is somehow more "mature" and desirable than attempts (however clumsy) at philosophical examination.
You guys are missing the point. It's not an issue of "clumsily" attempting philosophical examination, it's an issue of lazily GESTURING at the idea of philosophical examination without actually DOING that. It's a way of feeling smart and freethinking by giving you two cartoonish extremes that are obviously bad, all while contriving to show them as symmetrical no matter how asymmetric they are, by letting you reject black both black and white for a perfect medium grey. Which isn't philosophy, it's fingerpainting. It doesn't deserve points for trying to be philosophical, because it's not doing that. It's trying to look philosophical without actually saying anything, which is the opposite of philosophy. If you're gonna put two sides into a dialectic, you need to actually put on your grownup writer pants and make something of it, rather than going "This side bad... but - other side bad also? Both bad, extremes bad, not-extremes good".
@@jamesnomos8472 I think you are assuming Ken's goals are loftier than they actually were. Do you think he was trying to be deep and philosophically profound? Seems more like he was just trying to make a fun game with some interesting hypotheticals pushed to their extreme-- to me the story is meant to be cool sci-fi to provoke thought. If we were really supposed to take all of it seriously as some sincere philosophical juxtaposition would the hero's only line really be "nah" ? -- maybe you are asking for more, which is fine, but look at it for what it is also. In the 90's wasn't the idea of an AI overlord vs. singularity/combined-human-consciousness pretty original and smart on its own?? Correct me if I'm wrong. I didn't play this game until '09 and I thought it was a super interesting idea- I've spent many a night awake in bed thinking about it not necessarily in the context of the game.
For me, what helps to mitigate the "both sides are bad" element is that Shodan (more or less) created the Many. I've always seen them as somewhat of a victim. Shodan created them and lost control, because she's a narcissist who thinks she can't fail, just like she created you the player and eventually loses control of you. Shodan's failing is that she underestimates other beings. When the Many aren't trying to kill or subdue you, I feel like they do see some kinship with our shared predicaments. Whereas Shodan is a liar, I think the Many were being honest. For that reason, I don't see the player as being the mediator at all. The Many were a tragic consequence of Shodan's hubris, and they're also really dangerous. Those aren't incompatible to me.
It's been a while but I always thought they found the many in space and it infested the ship. Didn't know that the machine mother created them. Well the name should have given it away lol. Well here I go play it again
Kind of like how everything Fontaine did in _BioShock_ was only possible thanks to Ryan creating the perfect environment in which his "business enterprise" could thrive.
The whole "enlightened centrism bad" rhetoric is just as cartoonish as the video says Ken Levines depictions of libertarianism vs authoritarianism/individualism vs collectivism are. The whole point is that any ideology can be taken to disastrous extremes.
@@eatersthemanfool centrists are just people with no morals or beliefs, you either think killing babies is wrong in every situation or you don't, you either support socialists like hitler and stalin and mao and their genocides or you don't.
Honestly: yeah, the ending of System Shock 2 is silly, but it's not *that* much of a letdown. The whole game is pretty silly, with it's telepathic monkeys, clunky robots that go clank and 3D printed ninjas. It's cyberpunk, but it's cyberpunk by way of 1950s pulp (the transatlantic english accent in the intro is a dead giveaway). It's kinda like how Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers goes from political manifesto to talking dogs and jetpacks.
Oh my god you're so right about that! You've put a feeling I've had about SS2 for years into plain English, thank you. I can't believe I never made the connection with Starship Troopers cheese, but it makes total sense. The corporate megalomania of the world in SS1 was the quintessential setting one would expect in a cyberpunk story. But of course the sequel takes place decades later when the balance of power has shifted. The world's nation states have confederated under the UNN and tightened control over private enterprise. It makes sense that the genre of SS2 would be less cyberpunk, and more military sci-fi futurism, akin to Starship Troopers, Aliens, or Wing Commander.
@@icarus313 It's so frustrating for me. SS2 is such a fun, vibrant action horror game and people talk about it like it was scifi ARMA, written by Cormac McCarthy.
Idk man I was absolutely friggin scared of the monkeys when I first played. They were so hard to spot so you relied on listening how their sound turned from cute to this unhinged anger, and I find this transition absolutely terrifying, as if your sweet cat that you love suddenly decided to murder you. Even recently I had a nightmare when my cat turned into a zombie, and killed everyone in the house who thought poor little guy was just sick and tried to help...
Fun fact is that Kingpin was very popular in 90s Russia for its aesthetics and fun translation. After you analysis of its violent nihilism, I kinda understand why it clicked at a more deeper level with many Russians constantly living in the nihilist environment the game was dipicting.
Russian unofficial videogame translations and dubs from the 90s are a cultural heritage. Nerds going full "fine, I'll do it myself" resulted in some truly memorable work. Kingpin and Fallout 2 are definitely the highlights.
@@telefrag. > Nerds going full "fine, I'll do it myself" You are completely mistaken. That didnt exist in the 90s. In the 90s it was more "we have 3 days to record these lines and submit it to the print, let's do it in any way we are able". Nerds doing translations is the product of the last decade.
It didn't click at a deeper level at all, it was just one of a few games you could hear curse words in, which was a big hit with adolescent boys. It was an unofficial translation and it was made more comedic than the original. Also, it was voiced by professional actors, which was unheard of for bootleg releases, they even advertised it on the cover.
I love the read on the Shock games as "you're not really fighting for anything, you're just fighting against everything." Bioshock Infinite is definitely the biggest offender, where even people who don't normally participate in media criticism were still going "wait, are you saying the racists are right?"
I think the point of it was that if you fight against oppressive government group x, get the upper hand and then start murdering, you have morally ceded any difference from the people you thougth were bad enough to kill.
It's annoying, but not really saying that. Infinite ISN'T saying they're right, but it IS coming from a "Biden Voter who thinks they're revolutionary" perspective.
@@Volvagia1927 Infinite to me felt more like someone saying "I refuse to vote for Biden, cause he's not good enough", and not realizing or caring that the standard for centrism is that silence only helps the oppressor.
I think what Infinite was _trying_ to go for was a "cycles of violence" kind of thing, how the desire for justice, when corrupted by hatred, becomes a need for vengeance that can never be satiated, leading to increasing acts of retaliatory brutality. Of course, Infinite being a AAA spectacle-fest that was stuck in dev hell for five years (before that was standard), no doubt rewritten multiple times, and with the Columbia conflict meant to be more of a background to the _actual_ story... not surprising it turned out as clumsy as it did.
@@RunePonyRamblings I can see that having been an intent, yeah. If they'd had more time, or a more cohesive story, it really could have come across. But even when my younger and dumber self played Infinite for the first time, it was painful how much the game seemed to be saying that even self defense or resistance to oppression "counted" as part of the cycle of violence. I would love to see the version of the game that had something more to say aside from "shooting people is bad, but also, it looks SO cool, so it's fine when YOU do it. Now here's a grappling saw thing, go have fun."
I didn't expect Medal of Honor to have such an interesting history! If the idea was to educate teens on World War II, it at least made sure everybody knows how to reload an M1 Garand.
I think the coolest thing Kinpin does is its promise. Like in the very first level it feels almost like a crime immersive sim. You need a gun, so you get a quest to rob a store. If you can acquire some money, you can hire a guy to tank security bullets while you take them out with a lead pipe. Or maybe you can get a crowbar from a homeless guy? The girl right next to the warehouse tells you when the guards are distracted, maybe you can sneak in? Except it falls apart immediately. No you can't sneak in because game has no stealth mechanics, and distraction is detrimental because then guards are bunched together. But like, it maybe it *could've* worked.
I think the hybrids are those who, like the player, fought against the many, and suffered the fate it threatened. They have been absorbed by the mass but kept mentally separate. Unwillingly controlled and without the rapturous bliss promised.
Almost but not quite. several audio logs show that even willing entrants maintained a bit of their own consciousness. including Diego himself and his famous defiance of the many. Its almost as if the many is overpromising and doesnt quite offer a full integrated culture.
The "tower defence mode" in the Wheel of Time FPS does not feature much in the main campaign at all, but it's the main focus of the multiplayer game, where each side can place defences and guards in their fort, then try to defend their fort while infiltrating the enemy fort.
A new Children of Doom is always to be celebrated, even if it directly contradicts the stated format. Fuck the rules! All is chaos! Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!
It’s fascinating how Ken Levine’s ideas from his earlier games are still popping up in his newer work - just depends on what he wants his team to spend time and resources expanding on. That bit early in this video about Shodan docking you cybermodules for disobeying her, and how Shodan and The Many are constantly on your ass throughout the game either giving you orders or trying to sway you to their side of their conflict seems like the dynamic that Ghost Story games is pushing now in Judas, or at least what they’re presenting to media in the initial gameplay previews. In Judas, you’ve got the three different AI leaders, each with their own agendas, and completing missions for one AI / going against certain members will result in rewards or punishment, though I wonder how dynamic or in-depth this system will be in the full release.
I had to take a double take on that ending cut scene for when you defeat SHODAN, cus I almost thought it was a gag about a meme made by someone in like the early 2000s as a shit post... and not the real cut scene cus oh boy that feels like a shit post animation
One of the reasons I didn't vibe much with system shock 2 but loved the first system shock is their different approaches to level design. In the first system shock citadel station's different floors had a wide variety of aesthetics to them. The executive floor looked like a gaudy luxurious 1970's NYC hotel, the maintenance areas looked industrial, the medical bay looked sterile and the garden's naturalism contrasted well with the otherwise artificial ship. Entering an elevator and going to a new floor felt exciting because you had no idea what it would look or feel like. It also did a lot of world building and thematic stuff. We know the people in charge of citadel station were self serving jerks who didn't really like working on a space station but used their power and influence to give themselves a sense of exclusivity and luxury because the executive level is a decadent well lit palace compared to the rest of the ship which was more gloomy and utilitarian. The medical bay looks competent but is cold and sterile suggesting a indifference to worker's well being and the investment in sophisticated medical facilities was solely a pragmatic decision to keep employees alive and working. The gardens look like they were well maintained and controlled but are now becoming more wild and abrasive due to Shodan's influence. With System Shock 2 everywhere on the Von Braun looks essentially the same. The spaces have the same sanitized generic sci fi space ship aesthetic to them. Occasionally a space will break from the aesthetic but even then nothing feels lived in the way the first game did.
It's good too see someone talking about System Shock 2 in a genuine way, no blind praise like it's an untouchable cult gem. It has plenty of flaws, and I'm looking forward to a truthful analysis of Bioshock later in the series too. As usual, excellent essay.
RE: Alien Versus Predator being a "labour of love" - if the fact that all the Marines are British didn't already give it away, they didn't have any actors... all those video calls are literally the game's developers having a root through the fancy-dress bin and playing soldiers themselves!
@@karry299 It's more that the lack of funds showcases the labour of love itself; because then you learn that the team couldn't afford to get anyone else on board for a given component...and decided that they cared enough to just do it themselves.
Presumably that's because the interactions would have to be entirely scripted so that the game's systems don't implode, which would go against the "systems driven" philosophy. The other (equally likely) explanation, is that having the factions dynamically fight each other would undermine the player's role as the "prime agent".
@@RunePonyRamblings Even if that *did* kinda go against the traditional im-sim design philosophy, a modern game focused on de-centering the player as the prime agent and throwing them into a dynamic, systems-driven war zone between multiple factions, where they're just a small part of the overall picture sounds like it would still be pretty cool to experience imo
Kevin Levine didn't make bioshock 2 and wants nothing to do with it. Doesn't mean that the makers of that game didn't look to system shock 2 for inspiration tho
That's not the message of SS2. The status quo in the game are the UNN and Trioptimum, which are both portrayed generally negatively. The player is just defending humanity from two forces, the Many and Shodan, that want to exterminate it. This would be like claiming Fallout 1&2 are centrist because in those games you defend humanity from the Master and the Enclave.
@@xBINARYGODx yeah I was just agreeing with the video. in hindsight it seems pretty clear what the politics of these devs were over their entire careers. system shock 2 came out in 1999 and over a decade later its the same theme in bioshock infinite. its just what they do. people can like it! i love all these games, its just very interesting how gen x they are
@@xBINARYGODx I just have to disagree that the moral of them is "everything is fine" when the worlds of System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex are all quite dystopian and actually paint a pretty cynical picture of the world.
The moral is actually closer to taoism. Chaos and order are neither good nor evil, and balance is found by walking the thin path between them. It's a way of thinking that has fallen out of fashion in recent years where everything has to be taken to the extremes (brought on by internet algorithms in order to maximize engagement). In other words, variety is the spice of life, and all things in moderation. It's not that "everything is fine" but rather that "nothing is fine". You should look into moral philosophy. You'll probably end up finding yourself agreeing with them (or at least some of their points).
I think you’ll change your opinion on swat3’s legacy once you get to swat4 and all of its minor details. Enviromental storytelling, thick atmosphere, non-lethal instruments, score system that actually encourages you to do it in non-lethal way. Swat3 may be wish fulfillment for cops if you look at it at this angle, but 4 is a different beast with different focus despite mechanically being kinda the same. And later games like Ready or Not are more swat4 followers than 3
The way the events of RoN are framed feels particularly sober: Los Sueños is a barely pessimistic depiction of failing LA whose decay is caused by larger factors, and beyond the scope of what policing can address, there is no pretense of saving the world. The force you are a part of is depicted as under-funded and outpaced by rampant crime in a context of desperate economic upheaval, and you contend not just with your squad mortality but also other forms of trauma. One mission turns out to be a swatting incident, where nobody was at risk and it's actually our presence that may trigger a gunfight. Obviously a game where you play as police officers isn't going to scream ACAB and "defund police!" from the top of its lungs, it's by nature going to justify policing institutions existing to a degree, but it doesn't frame them as the fix to society's ills. True success in this game isn't to merely bring order to chaos, it is to get everyone out alive, so someone else, not cops, can sort it out.
@@kevinwillems8720 I mean the game fails you all the same for killing someone with less lethal force, and flavour text warns about this. Less lethal is not unrealistically reliable like it was in SWAT4. I think that makes it far less of a fantasy!
The take on Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament misses for me a couple of key items. First is that this was the peak of the single-player bots brought about by Quake's modding scene. While Unreal Tournament would develop its bots further in future editions, they would fall out of fashion in FPSs as broadband became the norm. Second is that Unreal Tournament marks a key shift in the FPS market towards team games over deathmatch, also represented by the success Counterstrike was going to garner during its beta this year. Quake 3 would be seen as almost dated in its approach, responding with Quake 3 Team Arena (Q3TA) the following year. Unreal Tournament was also one of the first games to do what we'd now call "free DLC" with a sizeable release of new maps for all its mods, prior to the release of Q3TA. It's an early example, though not the first, with Total Annihilation's unit releases being the earliest one that I recall.
I agree with this. I also felt that he missed the point of things like the mishmash of weapons and levels. If I remember right, the in universe reason is that the Liandri megacorporation makes these crazy outlandish arenas for televised deathmatches. So that everything has a lot of flair to it makes sense to me. And it is a lot of fun too to see what the next crazy deathmatch arena is going to be like when playing for the first time. I mean why wouldn't an evil megacorporation with near infinte money make deathmatch arenas based on historical events and themes? I think it is awesome nonetheless and a very memorable game from my childhood that I still play from time to time.
I feel the need to defend SWAT 3. I am as opposed to militarized police as the next guy, but it does seem weird to criticize a game where you play as a SWAT officer for starting from the premise that SWAT teams are sometimes needed. 1. None of the missions cited are part of the base game or the campaign. They were added with the Tactical Game of the Year edition and are noticeably lower quality than the main levels - as well as a lot more stupid. 2. True, the use of deadly force is not strictly discouraged, but limiting it is absolutely encouraged. The game gives you points and awards you Unit Commendation medals based on not killing people who don't pose a threat - it also won't award you other medals if you've killed folks you needn't have. 3. The game does a few very cool things with proper use of deadly force: A) You're supposed to yell at suspects to drop their weapon BEFOREHAND, otherwise it is typically not proper use of deadly force (unless they are shooting). A surprised or outnumbered suspect will often surrender. B) Even if the suspect is holding a weapon, it is only proper use of deadly force if they actually raise their weapon (very much not the case in the real world). C) The damage you deal seems to be randomized, so shooting someone in the leg will sometimes kill them. D) Civilians are sometimes armed and they need to be restrained. They sometimes refuse to give up their weapon or shoot at you - giving lie to the ridiculous "good guy with a gun" fantasies. 4. I really liked the fact that the mission briefings usually included pretty sketchy intel. No being sure what exactly to expect made it seem more realistic. "Bring order to chaos" is a real thing in mass shooting situations, that's literally what SWAT teams should do - not shoot dogs when responding to noise complaints. 5. SWAT 3 did an incredibly cool piece of storytelling - so cool that most of its players are unaware of it and it's not mentioned on it's wiki. Towards the end, suitcase nukes appear, but it's never made completely clear how the bad guys would would have gotten their hands on them. Then in the last mission, there is this civilian, the Secretary of Defense. He is sometimes already wounded, sometimes not, and when he isn't he's armed and might be hostile towards the player. There is a suitcase nuke in that mission, typically not far from where he is. It would seem like the Russian bad guy faction placed the nuke there. But if he's wounded and you listen to his moaning, he'll repeat the phrase "that treaty must be stopped" - suggesting HE was the one who'd gotten and planted the nuke there. The game does not acknowledge this in any way, it simply rewards you for paying attention with a hidden plot twist. I played SWAT 3 A LOT as a kid. It is better than SWAT 4 in almost every way, especially suspects' and your teammates' behavior. I never felt it was selling me on the necessity of using deadly force, quite the opposite. It encouraged not killing the suspects, especially compared to the Rainbow Six games where killing was your only option. The main issue with the game gameplay-wise was that the team AI worked well in short hallways and small rooms - so the game included lots of missions with very long hallways, open spaces and very large rooms. The AI didn't know how to handle it, so you basically had to go it alone, with your team as back up.
@@Nipah.Auauau I meant that "a good guy with a gun" is always considered a threat first. In a mass shooting situation, law enforcement cannot tell who the good guys and bad guys are. Sometimes, in the game, the "good guys" will shoot at you. Other times, hostages will die in the crossfire between the suspects and armed civilians, failing the mission. They are rarely a benefit, always a hazard.
I agree with you. I sort of grew up with SWAT 3 and thought it was great at the time. I love the little details like the section of the game where you have almost like an encyclopedia of detailed text about all your gear, tactics and other explanations of why SWAT teams do what they do. The AI was amazing in some ways even compared to some games today. And other times they were a bit more limited in some levels, which along with the brutal difficulty usually leads to a much larger killcount than you'd like. But I think that is just that late 90's experimental game design. To me I always try to save as many suspects as possible, and a mission turning into a bloodbath is usally the players fault for not using superior tactics. Which is what SWAT is all about in both the games and real life. And yeah, the added missions are really weird how much of a tone shift there is from the original campaign. Almost like they were made by modders or a very amateurish dev team.
@@Apolita1987 So a scenario where an armed civilian will intervene in a hostage situation after the police are already on the scene (or intervened earlier and failed to resolve the situation before the police arrived), will not cooperate or communicate with the police, and may shoot the police on sight? Does that kind of situation come up often?
@@Nipah.Auauau In real life or in the game? In the game it happens every few missions. Usually it's private security, but I think I remember instances of over-eager morons who will sometimes just pick up a gun off the floor and cause chaos.
I was such a huge fan of Wheel of Time back then. It impressed me in so many ways and made me read the books, but nobody I showed it to seemed to care.
It's an awesome, sprawling series. With some dips in quality in the middle part, sure.. and with a VERY unsatisfying ending.. (to me at least) but ultimately worth reading. Oh, and the game is cool too. I guess.
I love SS2... Have the original release, with a neat paper manual and stuff. Bought back when, because even as a teenager I already showed uparalleled taste in games, women, as well as great humility. I also enjoyed Wheel of Time, but only because at the time(sic!) I was reading Jordan's books. Haven't touched the game since 2000, so I have no clue how it plays now. As for Quake 3 vs UT, there is no competition. UT all the way, but we played Soldier of Forture much more during LAN parties. The mixture of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke, I can recall it when I close my eyes. Thanks for the nostalgia trip.
I should bring up that the game Codename Eagle came out in 1999 too. It was a open worldish alt-history world war 1 fps where you could drive vehicles and stuff, including in it's multiplayer. More importantly, it's developer, Refraction, was bought out by DICE and this game ended up being the spiritual predecessor to Battlefield.
My favorite game of all time! Also this game has a shockingly good Steam Controller preset which feels so good. It might need a bit of tweaking to fix the quick menu (this is due to some issues with what the steam controller interface can save) but it feels... So good once you learn it. The slightly floaty but precise nature of the trackpad seems to bind perfectly with the feel of the game and its physics.
Thank you for this. Seriously, I'm utterly exhausted from busy days at work, needing a pick-me up and you drop this 80 minute feast and finish with a teaser for Deus-Ex of all things? Why ambassador, you are really spoiling us.
Finding Polito and her just being dead, and the game pausing as you think "wait... what" before Shodan comes in, was amazing when you didn't know it was coming. One of my favorite memories from a game.
Wheel of Time has an odd place in canon in that the game tries very hard to not contraddict the novels that were already out at the time but at the same time you can tell that some parts just can't take into account the books that came after it so they fill the gaps as best as they can. Some parts are also different due to gameplay limitations, for example Balefire in the novels is not a sort of railgun that passes through walls but something that delets things and people from reality that has to be calibrated by the caster to avoid overshooting the target or delete its existence hard enough to make it/them cease to exist too far into the past (and yes, it's a plot point in the books) but regardless of how powerful it is it kills on contact and casting strength only influences the distance, the area affected and how far in the past whatever hits it ceases to exist (it also deletes souls from the cosmic reality barring any reincarnation or resurrection, even the bad guys balk at its use). The game was my introduction to the saga (in Italy publication was spotty until Fanucci got the rights in the early 00s) and I enjoyed it so much I also bought the books when I spotted them in a bookstore some years later, I enjoyed it all the same without knowing the saga so I think it's accessible enough for those that don't know it.
Tragic that you didn't mention Mortyr. It came out in America literally the last day of 1999. In Europe, it came out *before* Medal of Honor. I think it might be the ur polygonal WWII shooter
What an excellent overview of a video ! I'm usually not a fan of longwinded essays and retro-perspectives (because of the length, not because I don't enjoy them) but this was well worth watching
Absolutely love this channel, such brilliant videogame essays. Wish I knew as much as about anything as you do games! That "Nah" in system shock lives rent free in my head!
17:40 captures the exact kind of arguments I watch for on your channel. Thank you for including your values in your work and making a case for what games could be.
Feature-length Campster! I do miss more regular updates but am happy you've found an upload schedule that works with what youtube is now / what respects your time.
Once that music hits.... YES! Medal of Honor really was such a game changer! That did feel like it came out of no where. Good retrospective of that year
OK, technical gripes aside, my biggest takeaway from this was the offhanded comment you made about _System Shock_ reminding you of _Dark Souls._ It so happens I just recently watched Rojovision's LP of the game, and that was the same impression I got. In fact, it made me wonder what a game inspired by _System Shock_ that leans into the _Dark Souls_ similarity would be like. Not being able to savescum, always getting sent back to the last bed you interacted with instead of just getting a game-over if you die in a new level (that one might have already been fixed in the remake), enemies only respawning when you do, beds being your only source of health refills... there's some real potential there. Oh, and apparently EA did plan to make a third _System Shock_ game and actually did get a studio to start working on it. You might know it better under the name it actually eventually released under, _Dead Space._
Dark soul really is the Undertale of everyone’s first “gAmErZ” experience, in that everyone keeps claiming such and such mechanics come from or is popularized from there. Developer’s just copy and iterate what came before, all FromSoftware games and probably the entire industry can be traced back to Dungeons and Dragon’s. 😗
Your description of how Requiem plays now sounds spot on for how it played back then, so I don't think it's a problem with running on modern CPUs. I loved that game despite it clearly having problems but couldn't articulate why until watching this
an amazing game. the first time you play it you will run out of ammo, you will have guns jam in the middle of a fight, you will run for your life. you will shiver as the many hijacks your mind and quietly threatens you. but the second time you play it, you'll save your ammo, you'll lean around corners, you'll spend your modules more wisely. eventually you know where everything is, know how to take down enemies efficiently and won't get lost in the maze. then you'll go for every module and become a godly god. great design.
I played UT99 like crazy for years after it came out and still boot it up now and then to this day... and I just now learned you can use the impact hammer on the transporter
Medal of Honor was a formative game in my childhood. My dad played through it and because he didn't fully understand the concept of overwriting save data would purchase a new memory card when the one he had inevitably ran out of the storage. Also the Michael Giacchino score is phenomenal and was the first time I took note of a musical composer. Which basically means I've been a fan of his longer than any other artist.
Perfect timing, I've been playing System Shock 1 (the remake version) and it struck me how much more it feels like a survival horror (specifically it's very similar to its contemporary Realms of the Haunting imo) than anything else in the im sim canon. I've had SS2 on my Steam for absolutely years and now I finally have a serviceable desk for the first time in over a decade, it might be time to give it a go.
as someone who ran THROUGH a demo disc of redline as a kid, seeing you play it for five seconds and struggle to get past simple geometric objects was deeply relateable. redline is less a game and more a hitbox-navigation crash course
It is 1999, i'am 14 years old. I got my first gaming pc with gpu (before i had 486dx PC that i played doom in software mode). Those several year 1999-2001 was like pure magic. Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Soldier of Fortune, Need for speed, dungeon keeper 2, half-life, max payne, undying, no one lives forever and many other. I never in life will feel the same as i felt those years back then.
I'm going to defend System Shock 2's ending. You might say it's goofy, but what better way is there to cut through her interminable speeches than with a "your mom"? It's the pithy needle-point that pops the balloon of Shodan's swollen hauteur.
saying Shodan isn't much of a character in 1 compared to 2 is insane, Shodan is *all* of SS1, she's literally everywhere in that game. In 2 she has to share screentime with The Many and kind of just comes off as a weaker version of her 1-self.
I think he's more saying in SS2 Shodan has more of a relationship with the character? Like in the original she's trying to stomp out a bug running through its halls and in SS2 She's very much useing you as a pawn.
I thing so to, Shodan was entire ship, you were almost nothing in comparison to her. but in the sequel, you could almost completely wright her out, and just have the many as main big bad, almost nothing else changes.
hm. i kinda wonder. it probably depends on a specific implementation, but if every "instance" or "unit" of a fictional assimilating hive mind experiences all of the hive mind as a whole, would the words like "run" that you hear from a given drone be necessarily the words of that drone? i imagine that if there is just one human (realistically more than one) struggling within the many, then this struggle will echo across the entire hive mind. the many itself would be too overbearing to physically resist, but the thought of "this kinda sucks actually i don't want this" could easily be said using the lips of a drone who is kinda chilling, thus the contradictory quotes. in system shock 2 it is probably more of an engine and design limitation, they could only fit so many voice lines and so many enemy types, and it would make even less sense if for example pipe hybrids could only relate dissatisfaction and if grenade hybrids could only rave about their triumphs. another way to read is, of course, that every drone is resisting personally, but that in fact doesn't line up with the voice logs that you presented. That humans trapped within the Many have many mouths to scream but an even bigger presence containing them makes more sense as far as I am concerned.
Why does nobody ever talk about how good the audio is in Dark Engine games? Also in the Medal of Honor section I misheard "sugar-coated" as "shooter-coated", makes u think
It feels strange that I only know System Shock and Quake 3, out of this year's shooters! Previous years I always knew of several, as cool things I couldn't play lol. Huh! Glad to hear that you still have more thoughts on System Shock. That was one of the ones that dominated my imagination as a kid.
Really appreciate you soldiering on with this series and getting to hear well-considered evaluations of lesser known titles in particular. Not to discount your take on System Shock 2, but where else am I going to learn about Kingpin, Requiem or the Wheels of Time tie-in game.
@@ErrantSignal the dude asked where else he was gonna hear about these games as if you were the first person to cover them and I merely pointed out that wasn't the case. Dunno why that would bother you
It's really funny to hear this reevaluation of System Shock 2 as a precursor to Bioshock Infinite's lazy "no sides" conflict writing after two decades of online game critics (including yourself) rallying behind it as an underappreciated masterpiece. I've never played any of these titles, but I've always been fascinated by SS2 especially as an influence on Portal's writing, and the silly "nah" ending seems like equal parts the writers copping out of coming up with something better and an appreciation of how cheesy the entire premise of the game is. It's like a reminder to not take its goofy sci-fi tropes too seriously, even if it had aspirations of being a higher concept game than most of its contemporaries. Always appreciate these walks through FPS history, Chris.
Bought SS2 on a whim back in 2000 at our local video game shop. Didn’t know what it was about, just thought the cover looked kinda cool. I was totally stumped by the gameplay at first but as I kept playing it, the game opened up for me. It’s a fascinating game that is radically different from everything else released at the time. Although it’s antiquated from a convenience perspective, I can highly recommend playing it. It’s a unique and fantastic experience.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
new errant signal is a national holiday
Oh hey! I love your stuff Ozzy, I've watched your chaos head and raging loop videos like ten times, good to see you have great taste in creators.
TATAMI GALAXY SPOTTED GRAAAAA
*international
Especially Children of Doom!
^This
If you listen carefully to the "Why do you go so slowly...?" message "Polito" sends you on deck three (as heard at 6:49), you can hear just a little taste of the electronic distortion that SHODAN's later speech is swimming in. It's a nice touch that SHODAN is getting so impatient with you that the mask slips a little.
I remember getting to that part when I first played SS2 and thinking "hmm, that's weird". I had been assuming, up until that point, that Shodan was going to make a sudden surprise entrance into the plot by killing Janice Polito as she was talking to me over the comms, then taking her place. Which was almost correct, technically! But after that little mask-slip moment in Hydroponics I started to wonder why Polito was acting so impatient and callous while supposedly being the one to help me out of this mess. Then I think I asked myself "Wait, how does she even know how fast I'm going? Is she watching me all the time...even though I always disable the security system whenever I enter a new area?!" After that point I figured something crazy was gonna happen at any minute. I felt pressured to hurry up and only got more concerned when finally entering the hallway to Polito's office on Ops...when the normally omnipresent music suddenly vanished into dead silence. The perfect "uh-oh" moment that I love to experience in video games.
She also sounds more monotonous at that point, and you start to subconsciously wonder what's really up.
@@icarus313 Polito had already killed herself out of guilt for letting SHODAN out, and fear for what would happen because of it.
@@Kainlarsen Little did I know at the time... 😮
Children of doom is my favorite ongoing series on all of youtube. You're on my personal Mt. Rushmore of content creators alongside Noah, Hbomb, and Dan Olson. Thank you for the upload!
That is some high praise and I'm about it
This exactly, love that you also collected the same writers I watch lmao
I'm certain someone has already mentioned this, but people have made their own master servers for dedicated Unreal Tournament servers even before the delisting, so that torch is still being kept alive, just, in a bit more of an unofficial capacity.
Also I'm reminded of how there's probably a ton of people who think the Unreal Tournament callouts originated from Counter-Strike or even DOTA 2 of all games.
it's so funny to me that the plugins for the announcer callouts in counter-strike are typically called "quakesounds" when they're from ut
1:14:07 "there are a lot of proper nouns that the game expects you to just know, and i do not."
yup, sounds accurate to the books.
spouse tried to get me into the show & i just bounced off of it ep 1 for that exact reason
I fell off the series about eight books in because the writer would introduce characters, forget about them for a few books, then bring them back in and I was just supposed to remember them after hearing nothing from them for literal years.
1:19:41 yup, sounds accurate to the books.
Wheel of Time was just... not good. You could tell they put a lot of work into it, but the actual FPS combat was laughably clunky and you ended up with WAY too many magic powers, most of which you might use once and then never again.
@@ZylonBane sounds like Baldurs Gate 3 & Pathfinder
The late 2000s is gone be hell to make.
I mean, in terms of choosing mains? 2007-2010 (with the I-sim restraining bolt officially removed) is now EASY. BioShock, Fallout 3, Riddick 2, Metro 2033. What's hard for that is going to be 2023 (which I currently have marked as Starfield) and especially 2024 (Phantom Fury vs Anger Foot for the main game...?).
@@Volvagia1927nah
@@Volvagia1927 I think it's unlikely to make a fps retrospective on 2007 without talking about Call of Duty 4, the only best seller that has had an equal, if not even bigger, influence than DOOM.
Doom popularized and solidified a new born genre, COD4 bent an established, diverse genre into its mold and the industry has just started crawling away from it's shadow.
@@marreco6347 I didn't say he wouldn't at all. He has A BUNCH of side dishes in every episode now. COD 4 is going to be one of those, and would have been my guess for 2007's main dish if he still had the I-Sim restraining bolt.
@@Volvagia1927 It's "most important game", not "favourite game".
- 2007 is objectively CoD4 - defined the whole industry for the next decade (and yes that crowds out Halo 3, TF2, Portal & Bioshock but CoD4 was just that big)
- 2008: maybe Left 4 Dead? Kicked off a niche genre at least
- 2009: Borderlands? Arma 2? (Yeah I know CoD6 came out but it changed nothing from CoD4)
- 2010: ?? (Halo Reach? Black Ops? They were popular but I don't think they changed the industry, just continued the Halo 2-3 and CoD4 trains)
Some others I'd say are indisputable:
- 2000: Deus Ex
- 2001: Halo
- 2004: Half-Life 2
- 2014: Destiny
- 2016: DOOM
- 2017: PUBG (Fortnite is 3rd person)
And if we're allowing all first person games, 2011 has to be Skyrim. (Although tbh from the mid-2000s onwards "first person" doesn't tell you much - 3rd person shooters are way closer to FPSs than other first person games.)
Y'know, mechanically BioShock Infinite IS kind of a Halo game. Though admittedly closer to Combat Evolved, since while you're stuck with the two-weapon limit, your health is regenerating shields and static health.
As for the soldier just going "nah" in SS2, I thought it was hilarious. Admittedly it would've worked a little better if this was Space Quest, with the "nah" coming from the likes of Roger Wilco, but blowing off a would-be god with the same tone you'd use for turning down the offer of a cigarette? That's still pretty fun.
"halo clones" were the "doom clones" of the 2000s.
@@TheEvilCheesecakeI suppose the Doom Clone of the 2010's would be modern military shooters aping _CoD: Modern Warfare?_
@@TheEvilCheesecake For all the talk of ”Halo clones” I've never seen a single game that actually works similarly to Halo mechanically in a meaningful level. Sure, they have the *surface* of Halo, like CoD copying the 2-weapon thing… but nothing have recreated that combat dance you got with the bungie Halo titles (or even some of 343 ones).
I find it strange, we have boomer shooters that are inspired by Doom and other 90s fps, and we have the Half-Likes… we even recently had a F.E.A.R inspired one in Selaco. But Halo-inspired? Absolutely nothing. I find it kinda baffling, surely there's a market?
@@torb-noThere was Splitgate but that died when Halo Infinite released and it never quite nailed the feel of Halo.
There’s not one thing that makes a Halo game feel like Halo. It’s many different things working in tandem.
@@sergioizzaqt7707 In the multiplayer realm I think Splitgate is very much what I’m taling about! I’m not looking for exact clones, just games that sort of truly are of the same FPS subgenre (Halo-likes if you will).
What I’m missing though, is something truly like that in the single player campaign side of things.
Hopefully we’ll see something in time.
My parents were huge wheel of time fans so I’ve read the first nine books and we owned the game. It was solid, all of the places, fluff, and mechanics pull straight from the source material. The game takes the setting and invents a plot and characters to create its own story in it so things like angreal, the ways, and the white tower all exist in the setting fairly close to how it’s represented, but almost all major characters and events only exist in the game to let it explore many of the most interesting locations.
Interesting that they chose a member of the Brown Ajah as the protagonist of a fps game. I get not a Green, since there was no way a game from that era would have handled Warder companions well (and a Green *should* have more than one Warder). But wouldn't a Blue make more sense?
@@orestes0883It’s actually a clever plot point to justify the ammo system. Instead of a mana system or letting her create weaves on demand they use specialized ter’angreal, allowing them to limit what actions the player has access to. Plot wise the main character can’t channel much, so instead became an expert in using various ter’angreal thus brown Ajah. It works much like Doom, with some levels resetting your “weapons” and providing specific options for certain puzzles and combat encounters.
What about the pervasive and endless misandry of the books ? Does the game do that a lot ?
@@karry299 its interesting that you say that, because while culturally women are dominent, it also portrays them as at fault for many of the mistakes and misunderstandings of the series.
Ken Levine is so on the fence about everything that he's become one with the fence
Ken Levine thinks there are two sides to fence sitting
to anyone who doesn't see the world as black and white this is usually where we want artists to be
@@wgerardiIndeed, I find this recurring criticism rather bemusing. It implies that black & white didactism is somehow more "mature" and desirable than attempts (however clumsy) at philosophical examination.
You guys are missing the point. It's not an issue of "clumsily" attempting philosophical examination, it's an issue of lazily GESTURING at the idea of philosophical examination without actually DOING that. It's a way of feeling smart and freethinking by giving you two cartoonish extremes that are obviously bad, all while contriving to show them as symmetrical no matter how asymmetric they are, by letting you reject black both black and white for a perfect medium grey. Which isn't philosophy, it's fingerpainting.
It doesn't deserve points for trying to be philosophical, because it's not doing that. It's trying to look philosophical without actually saying anything, which is the opposite of philosophy. If you're gonna put two sides into a dialectic, you need to actually put on your grownup writer pants and make something of it, rather than going "This side bad... but - other side bad also? Both bad, extremes bad, not-extremes good".
@@jamesnomos8472 I think you are assuming Ken's goals are loftier than they actually were. Do you think he was trying to be deep and philosophically profound? Seems more like he was just trying to make a fun game with some interesting hypotheticals pushed to their extreme-- to me the story is meant to be cool sci-fi to provoke thought. If we were really supposed to take all of it seriously as some sincere philosophical juxtaposition would the hero's only line really be "nah" ? -- maybe you are asking for more, which is fine, but look at it for what it is also.
In the 90's wasn't the idea of an AI overlord vs. singularity/combined-human-consciousness pretty original and smart on its own?? Correct me if I'm wrong. I didn't play this game until '09 and I thought it was a super interesting idea- I've spent many a night awake in bed thinking about it not necessarily in the context of the game.
In this house, we stan Orbb.
Orbb
Orbb
Orbb!
Orbb!
You mean that head‑sized eye‑ball with human arms for legs from Quake 3: Arena? Cool, I guess... 🤷♂️
Heil, Orbb! 🧿
For me, what helps to mitigate the "both sides are bad" element is that Shodan (more or less) created the Many. I've always seen them as somewhat of a victim. Shodan created them and lost control, because she's a narcissist who thinks she can't fail, just like she created you the player and eventually loses control of you. Shodan's failing is that she underestimates other beings. When the Many aren't trying to kill or subdue you, I feel like they do see some kinship with our shared predicaments. Whereas Shodan is a liar, I think the Many were being honest. For that reason, I don't see the player as being the mediator at all. The Many were a tragic consequence of Shodan's hubris, and they're also really dangerous. Those aren't incompatible to me.
It's been a while but I always thought they found the many in space and it infested the ship. Didn't know that the machine mother created them. Well the name should have given it away lol.
Well here I go play it again
Kind of like how everything Fontaine did in _BioShock_ was only possible thanks to Ryan creating the perfect environment in which his "business enterprise" could thrive.
The whole "enlightened centrism bad" rhetoric is just as cartoonish as the video says Ken Levines depictions of libertarianism vs authoritarianism/individualism vs collectivism are.
The whole point is that any ideology can be taken to disastrous extremes.
@@stevethepocket but he was a conman outside of rapture, he found a niche in rapture but he could've found another somewhere else.
@@eatersthemanfool centrists are just people with no morals or beliefs, you either think killing babies is wrong in every situation or you don't, you either support socialists like hitler and stalin and mao and their genocides or you don't.
Epic, transcendent, introspective, existential nightmare of a game that all culminates to: "Nah 😏"
Sending off the 90s exactly as it should.
Honestly: yeah, the ending of System Shock 2 is silly, but it's not *that* much of a letdown. The whole game is pretty silly, with it's telepathic monkeys, clunky robots that go clank and 3D printed ninjas.
It's cyberpunk, but it's cyberpunk by way of 1950s pulp (the transatlantic english accent in the intro is a dead giveaway). It's kinda like how Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers goes from political manifesto to talking dogs and jetpacks.
Yeah, SS2's intro has big "Would you like to know more?" energy.
Oh my god you're so right about that! You've put a feeling I've had about SS2 for years into plain English, thank you. I can't believe I never made the connection with Starship Troopers cheese, but it makes total sense. The corporate megalomania of the world in SS1 was the quintessential setting one would expect in a cyberpunk story. But of course the sequel takes place decades later when the balance of power has shifted. The world's nation states have confederated under the UNN and tightened control over private enterprise. It makes sense that the genre of SS2 would be less cyberpunk, and more military sci-fi futurism, akin to Starship Troopers, Aliens, or Wing Commander.
@@icarus313 It's so frustrating for me. SS2 is such a fun, vibrant action horror game and people talk about it like it was scifi ARMA, written by Cormac McCarthy.
@@marreco6347 loool 💯💯
Idk man I was absolutely friggin scared of the monkeys when I first played. They were so hard to spot so you relied on listening how their sound turned from cute to this unhinged anger, and I find this transition absolutely terrifying, as if your sweet cat that you love suddenly decided to murder you. Even recently I had a nightmare when my cat turned into a zombie, and killed everyone in the house who thought poor little guy was just sick and tried to help...
Fun fact is that Kingpin was very popular in 90s Russia for its aesthetics and fun translation. After you analysis of its violent nihilism, I kinda understand why it clicked at a more deeper level with many Russians constantly living in the nihilist environment the game was dipicting.
Russian unofficial videogame translations and dubs from the 90s are a cultural heritage. Nerds going full "fine, I'll do it myself" resulted in some truly memorable work. Kingpin and Fallout 2 are definitely the highlights.
@@telefrag. > Nerds going full "fine, I'll do it myself"
You are completely mistaken. That didnt exist in the 90s. In the 90s it was more "we have 3 days to record these lines and submit it to the print, let's do it in any way we are able".
Nerds doing translations is the product of the last decade.
It didn't click at a deeper level at all, it was just one of a few games you could hear curse words in, which was a big hit with adolescent boys. It was an unofficial translation and it was made more comedic than the original. Also, it was voiced by professional actors, which was unheard of for bootleg releases, they even advertised it on the cover.
I love the read on the Shock games as "you're not really fighting for anything, you're just fighting against everything." Bioshock Infinite is definitely the biggest offender, where even people who don't normally participate in media criticism were still going "wait, are you saying the racists are right?"
I think the point of it was that if you fight against oppressive government group x, get the upper hand and then start murdering, you have morally ceded any difference from the people you thougth were bad enough to kill.
It's annoying, but not really saying that. Infinite ISN'T saying they're right, but it IS coming from a "Biden Voter who thinks they're revolutionary" perspective.
@@Volvagia1927 Infinite to me felt more like someone saying "I refuse to vote for Biden, cause he's not good enough", and not realizing or caring that the standard for centrism is that silence only helps the oppressor.
I think what Infinite was _trying_ to go for was a "cycles of violence" kind of thing, how the desire for justice, when corrupted by hatred, becomes a need for vengeance that can never be satiated, leading to increasing acts of retaliatory brutality.
Of course, Infinite being a AAA spectacle-fest that was stuck in dev hell for five years (before that was standard), no doubt rewritten multiple times, and with the Columbia conflict meant to be more of a background to the _actual_ story... not surprising it turned out as clumsy as it did.
@@RunePonyRamblings I can see that having been an intent, yeah. If they'd had more time, or a more cohesive story, it really could have come across. But even when my younger and dumber self played Infinite for the first time, it was painful how much the game seemed to be saying that even self defense or resistance to oppression "counted" as part of the cycle of violence.
I would love to see the version of the game that had something more to say aside from "shooting people is bad, but also, it looks SO cool, so it's fine when YOU do it. Now here's a grappling saw thing, go have fun."
OH DAMN! NEXT ONE IS DEUS EX BBY!
The sequel to the Hbomb video I didn't know I needed
I didn't expect Medal of Honor to have such an interesting history! If the idea was to educate teens on World War II, it at least made sure everybody knows how to reload an M1 Garand.
*PING*
I think the coolest thing Kinpin does is its promise. Like in the very first level it feels almost like a crime immersive sim. You need a gun, so you get a quest to rob a store. If you can acquire some money, you can hire a guy to tank security bullets while you take them out with a lead pipe. Or maybe you can get a crowbar from a homeless guy? The girl right next to the warehouse tells you when the guards are distracted, maybe you can sneak in? Except it falls apart immediately. No you can't sneak in because game has no stealth mechanics, and distraction is detrimental because then guards are bunched together. But like, it maybe it *could've* worked.
I think the hybrids are those who, like the player, fought against the many, and suffered the fate it threatened.
They have been absorbed by the mass but kept mentally separate. Unwillingly controlled and without the rapturous bliss promised.
Almost but not quite. several audio logs show that even willing entrants maintained a bit of their own consciousness. including Diego himself and his famous defiance of the many. Its almost as if the many is overpromising and doesnt quite offer a full integrated culture.
WE ARE BACK BABBBBYYYYYY
The "tower defence mode" in the Wheel of Time FPS does not feature much in the main campaign at all, but it's the main focus of the multiplayer game, where each side can place defences and guards in their fort, then try to defend their fort while infiltrating the enemy fort.
Oh boy we are SO back. This has genuinely made my day.
A new Children of Doom is always to be celebrated, even if it directly contradicts the stated format. Fuck the rules! All is chaos! Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!
It’s fascinating how Ken Levine’s ideas from his earlier games are still popping up in his newer work - just depends on what he wants his team to spend time and resources expanding on.
That bit early in this video about Shodan docking you cybermodules for disobeying her, and how Shodan and The Many are constantly on your ass throughout the game either giving you orders or trying to sway you to their side of their conflict seems like the dynamic that Ghost Story games is pushing now in Judas, or at least what they’re presenting to media in the initial gameplay previews.
In Judas, you’ve got the three different AI leaders, each with their own agendas, and completing missions for one AI / going against certain members will result in rewards or punishment, though I wonder how dynamic or in-depth this system will be in the full release.
I had to take a double take on that ending cut scene for when you defeat SHODAN, cus I almost thought it was a gag about a meme made by someone in like the early 2000s as a shit post... and not the real cut scene cus oh boy that feels like a shit post animation
Ending cutscene is the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life
One of the reasons I didn't vibe much with system shock 2 but loved the first system shock is their different approaches to level design. In the first system shock citadel station's different floors had a wide variety of aesthetics to them. The executive floor looked like a gaudy luxurious 1970's NYC hotel, the maintenance areas looked industrial, the medical bay looked sterile and the garden's naturalism contrasted well with the otherwise artificial ship. Entering an elevator and going to a new floor felt exciting because you had no idea what it would look or feel like. It also did a lot of world building and thematic stuff. We know the people in charge of citadel station were self serving jerks who didn't really like working on a space station but used their power and influence to give themselves a sense of exclusivity and luxury because the executive level is a decadent well lit palace compared to the rest of the ship which was more gloomy and utilitarian. The medical bay looks competent but is cold and sterile suggesting a indifference to worker's well being and the investment in sophisticated medical facilities was solely a pragmatic decision to keep employees alive and working. The gardens look like they were well maintained and controlled but are now becoming more wild and abrasive due to Shodan's influence. With System Shock 2 everywhere on the Von Braun looks essentially the same. The spaces have the same sanitized generic sci fi space ship aesthetic to them. Occasionally a space will break from the aesthetic but even then nothing feels lived in the way the first game did.
It's good too see someone talking about System Shock 2 in a genuine way, no blind praise like it's an untouchable cult gem. It has plenty of flaws, and I'm looking forward to a truthful analysis of Bioshock later in the series too. As usual, excellent essay.
omg yes ill never tire of system shock 2 discussio- ORBB 🗿
RE: Alien Versus Predator being a "labour of love" - if the fact that all the Marines are British didn't already give it away, they didn't have any actors... all those video calls are literally the game's developers having a root through the fancy-dress bin and playing soldiers themselves!
What's your point ? That it's not a labour of love but simply lack of funds, or the opposite ? Either way it doesnt track.
@@karry299 It's more that the lack of funds showcases the labour of love itself; because then you learn that the team couldn't afford to get anyone else on board for a given component...and decided that they cared enough to just do it themselves.
BABE WAKE UP!
IT'S TIME TO DO THE BABE WAKE UP MEME FOR NEW ERRANT SIGNAL!
CHILDREN OF DOOM VIEWERS WILL SEE THIS AND SAY "HELL YEAH!"
i see Chris's attempt to cultivate a tik tok audience are working.
Yeah.
Nice! This is my favorite series on youtube! Your video no Descent inspired me to make a game in a similar style. Keep up the great work!!
Signal boost!
Love ya, Brother, been following your work for 10+ years now
It IS really frustrating that we never get to see these dialectically opposed things that these Immersive Sims set up actually interact
Presumably that's because the interactions would have to be entirely scripted so that the game's systems don't implode, which would go against the "systems driven" philosophy.
The other (equally likely) explanation, is that having the factions dynamically fight each other would undermine the player's role as the "prime agent".
@@RunePonyRamblings Even if that *did* kinda go against the traditional im-sim design philosophy, a modern game focused on de-centering the player as the prime agent and throwing them into a dynamic, systems-driven war zone between multiple factions, where they're just a small part of the overall picture sounds like it would still be pretty cool to experience imo
A huge smile on my face when I saw this video in my feed - and it was very much worth the watch! Thanks 😁
Kevin Levine didn't make bioshock 2 and wants nothing to do with it. Doesn't mean that the makers of that game didn't look to system shock 2 for inspiration tho
It’s true of infinite too though
it is very funny how one of the voices that defined gaming made a bunch of games with the morale "everything is fine" its the most 90s moral ever
That's not the message of SS2. The status quo in the game are the UNN and Trioptimum, which are both portrayed generally negatively. The player is just defending humanity from two forces, the Many and Shodan, that want to exterminate it. This would be like claiming Fallout 1&2 are centrist because in those games you defend humanity from the Master and the Enclave.
@@cma30001 your being rather shallow with your look at the those games, the youtuber here was talking about looking across all the games.
@@xBINARYGODx yeah I was just agreeing with the video. in hindsight it seems pretty clear what the politics of these devs were over their entire careers. system shock 2 came out in 1999 and over a decade later its the same theme in bioshock infinite. its just what they do. people can like it! i love all these games, its just very interesting how gen x they are
@@xBINARYGODx I just have to disagree that the moral of them is "everything is fine" when the worlds of System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex are all quite dystopian and actually paint a pretty cynical picture of the world.
The moral is actually closer to taoism. Chaos and order are neither good nor evil, and balance is found by walking the thin path between them.
It's a way of thinking that has fallen out of fashion in recent years where everything has to be taken to the extremes (brought on by internet algorithms in order to maximize engagement).
In other words, variety is the spice of life, and all things in moderation.
It's not that "everything is fine" but rather that "nothing is fine".
You should look into moral philosophy. You'll probably end up finding yourself agreeing with them (or at least some of their points).
I think you’ll change your opinion on swat3’s legacy once you get to swat4 and all of its minor details. Enviromental storytelling, thick atmosphere, non-lethal instruments, score system that actually encourages you to do it in non-lethal way. Swat3 may be wish fulfillment for cops if you look at it at this angle, but 4 is a different beast with different focus despite mechanically being kinda the same. And later games like Ready or Not are more swat4 followers than 3
The way the events of RoN are framed feels particularly sober: Los Sueños is a barely pessimistic depiction of failing LA whose decay is caused by larger factors, and beyond the scope of what policing can address, there is no pretense of saving the world. The force you are a part of is depicted as under-funded and outpaced by rampant crime in a context of desperate economic upheaval, and you contend not just with your squad mortality but also other forms of trauma. One mission turns out to be a swatting incident, where nobody was at risk and it's actually our presence that may trigger a gunfight. Obviously a game where you play as police officers isn't going to scream ACAB and "defund police!" from the top of its lungs, it's by nature going to justify policing institutions existing to a degree, but it doesn't frame them as the fix to society's ills. True success in this game isn't to merely bring order to chaos, it is to get everyone out alive, so someone else, not cops, can sort it out.
Ok, but that only work if you don't know how lethal "less lethal" munitions are.
Seems more like SWAT3b is wish fulfillment for cops where 4 is how cops want the world to see them.
Like a less funny Brooklyn 99.
@@kevinwillems8720 I mean the game fails you all the same for killing someone with less lethal force, and flavour text warns about this. Less lethal is not unrealistically reliable like it was in SWAT4. I think that makes it far less of a fantasy!
@Hugobros3 of course if you know the history of policing you know that's not an accurate representation of policing either.
The take on Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament misses for me a couple of key items. First is that this was the peak of the single-player bots brought about by Quake's modding scene. While Unreal Tournament would develop its bots further in future editions, they would fall out of fashion in FPSs as broadband became the norm.
Second is that Unreal Tournament marks a key shift in the FPS market towards team games over deathmatch, also represented by the success Counterstrike was going to garner during its beta this year. Quake 3 would be seen as almost dated in its approach, responding with Quake 3 Team Arena (Q3TA) the following year.
Unreal Tournament was also one of the first games to do what we'd now call "free DLC" with a sizeable release of new maps for all its mods, prior to the release of Q3TA. It's an early example, though not the first, with Total Annihilation's unit releases being the earliest one that I recall.
I agree with this. I also felt that he missed the point of things like the mishmash of weapons and levels. If I remember right, the in universe reason is that the Liandri megacorporation makes these crazy outlandish arenas for televised deathmatches. So that everything has a lot of flair to it makes sense to me. And it is a lot of fun too to see what the next crazy deathmatch arena is going to be like when playing for the first time.
I mean why wouldn't an evil megacorporation with near infinte money make deathmatch arenas based on historical events and themes? I think it is awesome nonetheless and a very memorable game from my childhood that I still play from time to time.
I feel the need to defend SWAT 3.
I am as opposed to militarized police as the next guy, but it does seem weird to criticize a game where you play as a SWAT officer for starting from the premise that SWAT teams are sometimes needed.
1. None of the missions cited are part of the base game or the campaign. They were added with the Tactical Game of the Year edition and are noticeably lower quality than the main levels - as well as a lot more stupid.
2. True, the use of deadly force is not strictly discouraged, but limiting it is absolutely encouraged. The game gives you points and awards you Unit Commendation medals based on not killing people who don't pose a threat - it also won't award you other medals if you've killed folks you needn't have.
3. The game does a few very cool things with proper use of deadly force:
A) You're supposed to yell at suspects to drop their weapon BEFOREHAND, otherwise it is typically not proper use of deadly force (unless they are shooting). A surprised or outnumbered suspect will often surrender.
B) Even if the suspect is holding a weapon, it is only proper use of deadly force if they actually raise their weapon (very much not the case in the real world).
C) The damage you deal seems to be randomized, so shooting someone in the leg will sometimes kill them.
D) Civilians are sometimes armed and they need to be restrained. They sometimes refuse to give up their weapon or shoot at you - giving lie to the ridiculous "good guy with a gun" fantasies.
4. I really liked the fact that the mission briefings usually included pretty sketchy intel. No being sure what exactly to expect made it seem more realistic.
"Bring order to chaos" is a real thing in mass shooting situations, that's literally what SWAT teams should do - not shoot dogs when responding to noise complaints.
5. SWAT 3 did an incredibly cool piece of storytelling - so cool that most of its players are unaware of it and it's not mentioned on it's wiki.
Towards the end, suitcase nukes appear, but it's never made completely clear how the bad guys would would have gotten their hands on them.
Then in the last mission, there is this civilian, the Secretary of Defense. He is sometimes already wounded, sometimes not, and when he isn't he's armed and might be hostile towards the player.
There is a suitcase nuke in that mission, typically not far from where he is. It would seem like the Russian bad guy faction placed the nuke there.
But if he's wounded and you listen to his moaning, he'll repeat the phrase "that treaty must be stopped" - suggesting HE was the one who'd gotten and planted the nuke there.
The game does not acknowledge this in any way, it simply rewards you for paying attention with a hidden plot twist.
I played SWAT 3 A LOT as a kid. It is better than SWAT 4 in almost every way, especially suspects' and your teammates' behavior.
I never felt it was selling me on the necessity of using deadly force, quite the opposite. It encouraged not killing the suspects, especially compared to the Rainbow Six games where killing was your only option.
The main issue with the game gameplay-wise was that the team AI worked well in short hallways and small rooms - so the game included lots of missions with very long hallways, open spaces and very large rooms. The AI didn't know how to handle it, so you basically had to go it alone, with your team as back up.
What'd'you mean 'giving lie to the ridiculous "good guy with a gun" fantasies'?
@@Nipah.Auauau I meant that "a good guy with a gun" is always considered a threat first. In a mass shooting situation, law enforcement cannot tell who the good guys and bad guys are. Sometimes, in the game, the "good guys" will shoot at you. Other times, hostages will die in the crossfire between the suspects and armed civilians, failing the mission.
They are rarely a benefit, always a hazard.
I agree with you. I sort of grew up with SWAT 3 and thought it was great at the time. I love the little details like the section of the game where you have almost like an encyclopedia of detailed text about all your gear, tactics and other explanations of why SWAT teams do what they do. The AI was amazing in some ways even compared to some games today. And other times they were a bit more limited in some levels, which along with the brutal difficulty usually leads to a much larger killcount than you'd like. But I think that is just that late 90's experimental game design.
To me I always try to save as many suspects as possible, and a mission turning into a bloodbath is usally the players fault for not using superior tactics. Which is what SWAT is all about in both the games and real life.
And yeah, the added missions are really weird how much of a tone shift there is from the original campaign. Almost like they were made by modders or a very amateurish dev team.
@@Apolita1987 So a scenario where an armed civilian will intervene in a hostage situation after the police are already on the scene (or intervened earlier and failed to resolve the situation before the police arrived), will not cooperate or communicate with the police, and may shoot the police on sight? Does that kind of situation come up often?
@@Nipah.Auauau In real life or in the game? In the game it happens every few missions. Usually it's private security, but I think I remember instances of over-eager morons who will sometimes just pick up a gun off the floor and cause chaos.
I was such a huge fan of Wheel of Time back then. It impressed me in so many ways and made me read the books, but nobody I showed it to seemed to care.
It's an awesome, sprawling series. With some dips in quality in the middle part, sure.. and with a VERY unsatisfying ending.. (to me at least) but ultimately worth reading.
Oh, and the game is cool too. I guess.
Now I'm curious to hear your opinion on SWAT 4, if that game sits any different for you.
I love SS2... Have the original release, with a neat paper manual and stuff. Bought back when, because even as a teenager I already showed uparalleled taste in games, women, as well as great humility. I also enjoyed Wheel of Time, but only because at the time(sic!) I was reading Jordan's books. Haven't touched the game since 2000, so I have no clue how it plays now. As for Quake 3 vs UT, there is no competition. UT all the way, but we played Soldier of Forture much more during LAN parties. The mixture of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke, I can recall it when I close my eyes. Thanks for the nostalgia trip.
I should bring up that the game Codename Eagle came out in 1999 too. It was a open worldish alt-history world war 1 fps where you could drive vehicles and stuff, including in it's multiplayer. More importantly, it's developer, Refraction, was bought out by DICE and this game ended up being the spiritual predecessor to Battlefield.
It's Orbb!
Orbb.
Was not expecting Wheel of Time being discussed
I was thinking about this series the other day, hoping it wasn't abandoned. Been looking forward to it for ages
Never realized why i grew up to become such a radical centrist. It was because of these games!
My favorite game of all time! Also this game has a shockingly good Steam Controller preset which feels so good. It might need a bit of tweaking to fix the quick menu (this is due to some issues with what the steam controller interface can save) but it feels... So good once you learn it. The slightly floaty but precise nature of the trackpad seems to bind perfectly with the feel of the game and its physics.
Thank you for this.
Seriously, I'm utterly exhausted from busy days at work, needing a pick-me up and you drop this 80 minute feast and finish with a teaser for Deus-Ex of all things?
Why ambassador, you are really spoiling us.
Finding Polito and her just being dead, and the game pausing as you think "wait... what" before Shodan comes in, was amazing when you didn't know it was coming.
One of my favorite memories from a game.
Wheel of Time has an odd place in canon in that the game tries very hard to not contraddict the novels that were already out at the time but at the same time you can tell that some parts just can't take into account the books that came after it so they fill the gaps as best as they can. Some parts are also different due to gameplay limitations, for example Balefire in the novels is not a sort of railgun that passes through walls but something that delets things and people from reality that has to be calibrated by the caster to avoid overshooting the target or delete its existence hard enough to make it/them cease to exist too far into the past (and yes, it's a plot point in the books) but regardless of how powerful it is it kills on contact and casting strength only influences the distance, the area affected and how far in the past whatever hits it ceases to exist (it also deletes souls from the cosmic reality barring any reincarnation or resurrection, even the bad guys balk at its use).
The game was my introduction to the saga (in Italy publication was spotty until Fanucci got the rights in the early 00s) and I enjoyed it so much I also bought the books when I spotted them in a bookstore some years later, I enjoyed it all the same without knowing the saga so I think it's accessible enough for those that don't know it.
Tragic that you didn't mention Mortyr. It came out in America literally the last day of 1999.
In Europe, it came out *before* Medal of Honor. I think it might be the ur polygonal WWII shooter
What an excellent overview of a video ! I'm usually not a fan of longwinded essays and retro-perspectives (because of the length, not because I don't enjoy them) but this was well worth watching
Absolutely love this channel, such brilliant videogame essays. Wish I knew as much as about anything as you do games! That "Nah" in system shock lives rent free in my head!
56:00: Probably slipped your mind, but the original System Shock has the Reflex drug that slows time quite substantially, though no dodging bullets.
17:40 captures the exact kind of arguments I watch for on your channel. Thank you for including your values in your work and making a case for what games could be.
Feature-length Campster! I do miss more regular updates but am happy you've found an upload schedule that works with what youtube is now / what respects your time.
Once that music hits.... YES! Medal of Honor really was such a game changer! That did feel like it came out of no where. Good retrospective of that year
Maybe for console players.
@@karry299 good for you, you don't have friends. ASS!
OK, technical gripes aside, my biggest takeaway from this was the offhanded comment you made about _System Shock_ reminding you of _Dark Souls._ It so happens I just recently watched Rojovision's LP of the game, and that was the same impression I got. In fact, it made me wonder what a game inspired by _System Shock_ that leans into the _Dark Souls_ similarity would be like. Not being able to savescum, always getting sent back to the last bed you interacted with instead of just getting a game-over if you die in a new level (that one might have already been fixed in the remake), enemies only respawning when you do, beds being your only source of health refills... there's some real potential there.
Oh, and apparently EA did plan to make a third _System Shock_ game and actually did get a studio to start working on it. You might know it better under the name it actually eventually released under, _Dead Space._
Dark soul really is the Undertale of everyone’s first “gAmErZ” experience, in that everyone keeps claiming such and such mechanics come from or is popularized from there. Developer’s just copy and iterate what came before, all FromSoftware games and probably the entire industry can be traced back to Dungeons and Dragon’s. 😗
Always a pleasure to see you on my feed :) content is still top notch as always!
OHHH MYYY!!!! I`ve watched children of doom so many times in anticipation for this!!!!
Your description of how Requiem plays now sounds spot on for how it played back then, so I don't think it's a problem with running on modern CPUs. I loved that game despite it clearly having problems but couldn't articulate why until watching this
If you were next in line for the throne, you'd be Heirrant Signal. Have you ever thought about that?
an amazing game. the first time you play it you will run out of ammo, you will have guns jam in the middle of a fight, you will run for your life. you will shiver as the many hijacks your mind and quietly threatens you. but the second time you play it, you'll save your ammo, you'll lean around corners, you'll spend your modules more wisely. eventually you know where everything is, know how to take down enemies efficiently and won't get lost in the maze. then you'll go for every module and become a godly god. great design.
the man, the myth, THE LEGEND!
I played UT99 like crazy for years after it came out and still boot it up now and then to this day... and I just now learned you can use the impact hammer on the transporter
That's what we've been waiting for!
Medal of Honor was a formative game in my childhood. My dad played through it and because he didn't fully understand the concept of overwriting save data would purchase a new memory card when the one he had inevitably ran out of the storage. Also the Michael Giacchino score is phenomenal and was the first time I took note of a musical composer. Which basically means I've been a fan of his longer than any other artist.
had some good dreams falling asleep to this video and ur soothing voice, thanks mr signal
Perfect timing, I've been playing System Shock 1 (the remake version) and it struck me how much more it feels like a survival horror (specifically it's very similar to its contemporary Realms of the Haunting imo) than anything else in the im sim canon. I've had SS2 on my Steam for absolutely years and now I finally have a serviceable desk for the first time in over a decade, it might be time to give it a go.
as someone who ran THROUGH a demo disc of redline as a kid, seeing you play it for five seconds and struggle to get past simple geometric objects was deeply relateable. redline is less a game and more a hitbox-navigation crash course
I'm mad I only noticed this dropped once it became midnight here... But it won't stop me from watching it.
This series rules. Just binged the whole thing on the recommendation of TBSkyen.
Yet another amazing entry in the Children of Doom series. Absolutely excellent.
It is 1999, i'am 14 years old. I got my first gaming pc with gpu (before i had 486dx PC that i played doom in software mode). Those several year 1999-2001 was like pure magic. Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Soldier of Fortune, Need for speed, dungeon keeper 2, half-life, max payne, undying, no one lives forever and many other. I never in life will feel the same as i felt those years back then.
damn this was 99--'01 for me as well, but with a voodoo 5 and a little skateboarding for good measure 🙏
I'm going to defend System Shock 2's ending. You might say it's goofy, but what better way is there to cut through her interminable speeches than with a "your mom"? It's the pithy needle-point that pops the balloon of Shodan's swollen hauteur.
i agree--- also its just funny
man EVERY TIME i hear the deus ex menu theme again it just gets me so pumped
I know right. I literally said "fuck you" at the screen when it started playing, because now I have the urge to play through it again!
Man, just listening to this gave me nostalgia overload. Especially the last 5 seconds!
saying Shodan isn't much of a character in 1 compared to 2 is insane, Shodan is *all* of SS1, she's literally everywhere in that game. In 2 she has to share screentime with The Many and kind of just comes off as a weaker version of her 1-self.
I think he's more saying in SS2 Shodan has more of a relationship with the character? Like in the original she's trying to stomp out a bug running through its halls and in SS2 She's very much useing you as a pawn.
I thing so to, Shodan was entire ship, you were almost nothing in comparison to her. but in the sequel, you could almost completely wright her out, and just have the many as main big bad, almost nothing else changes.
This series somehow keeps getting better with each video
A full hour errant signal? Hell damn yes
hm. i kinda wonder.
it probably depends on a specific implementation, but if every "instance" or "unit" of a fictional assimilating hive mind experiences all of the hive mind as a whole, would the words like "run" that you hear from a given drone be necessarily the words of that drone? i imagine that if there is just one human (realistically more than one) struggling within the many, then this struggle will echo across the entire hive mind. the many itself would be too overbearing to physically resist, but the thought of "this kinda sucks actually i don't want this" could easily be said using the lips of a drone who is kinda chilling, thus the contradictory quotes.
in system shock 2 it is probably more of an engine and design limitation, they could only fit so many voice lines and so many enemy types, and it would make even less sense if for example pipe hybrids could only relate dissatisfaction and if grenade hybrids could only rave about their triumphs. another way to read is, of course, that every drone is resisting personally, but that in fact doesn't line up with the voice logs that you presented. That humans trapped within the Many have many mouths to scream but an even bigger presence containing them makes more sense as far as I am concerned.
Why does nobody ever talk about how good the audio is in Dark Engine games? Also in the Medal of Honor section I misheard "sugar-coated" as "shooter-coated", makes u think
It feels strange that I only know System Shock and Quake 3, out of this year's shooters! Previous years I always knew of several, as cool things I couldn't play lol. Huh!
Glad to hear that you still have more thoughts on System Shock. That was one of the ones that dominated my imagination as a kid.
Really appreciate you soldiering on with this series and getting to hear well-considered evaluations of lesser known titles in particular. Not to discount your take on System Shock 2, but where else am I going to learn about Kingpin, Requiem or the Wheels of Time tie-in game.
gmanlives has already done at least one video on kingpin, and Salokin did a good video on Requiem. None of this is uncharted territory for youtube
It's rad that Reviewer Dibs is alive and well in 2024
@@ErrantSignal the dude asked where else he was gonna hear about these games as if you were the first person to cover them and I merely pointed out that wasn't the case. Dunno why that would bother you
It's really funny to hear this reevaluation of System Shock 2 as a precursor to Bioshock Infinite's lazy "no sides" conflict writing after two decades of online game critics (including yourself) rallying behind it as an underappreciated masterpiece. I've never played any of these titles, but I've always been fascinated by SS2 especially as an influence on Portal's writing, and the silly "nah" ending seems like equal parts the writers copping out of coming up with something better and an appreciation of how cheesy the entire premise of the game is. It's like a reminder to not take its goofy sci-fi tropes too seriously, even if it had aspirations of being a higher concept game than most of its contemporaries. Always appreciate these walks through FPS history, Chris.
Bought SS2 on a whim back in 2000 at our local video game shop. Didn’t know what it was about, just thought the cover looked kinda cool. I was totally stumped by the gameplay at first but as I kept playing it, the game opened up for me. It’s a fascinating game that is radically different from everything else released at the time. Although it’s antiquated from a convenience perspective, I can highly recommend playing it. It’s a unique and fantastic experience.
I BEEN WONDERIN' WHEN I'D HEAR THIS PLATINUM TONGUE GAME CROONIN' (outside of reruns) AGAAAAAAIIIIIIIIN
today i learned there was a wheel of time fps game in 1999. light, how did i miss that?!
It really says something that I got actively exicted upon hearing the "Deus Ex" musical cue and the thought of Chris covering this game a second time.
🎉 He returns! Love your work.
Great video! Did I hear you say Game Stop instead of Game Spot around 13 minutes in?
You know this video has gone through two rounds of review before a final third draft got posted, and there's *always* something....
Hey welcome back Errant, ive enjoyed your videos since the beginning.
By Azura, by Azura by Azura! I can't believe it's you, standing here, next to me!
🥓: "Beat it, kid. Errant don’t need a fan."
The death noises from Unreal Tournament are permanently burned into my frontal cortex
It's nice to have this release in the summer, same vibes as '99.
I've waited so long for this :)
THE RETURN OF THE KING