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Great horror games: System Shock 2
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Space has always been a classic setting for scares in nearly all forms of media. Books, movies and video games have capitalized on the cold, dark unknown of our universe. Ellen Ripley faced it in the Alien Quadrilogy, Captain Miller contended with it in Event Horizon and Dr. David Bowman dealt with it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And thanks to System Shock 2, gamers got a chance to see what they were made of when completely dependent on a ship to keep them from dying in the dark expanse.
*Spoilers ahead.
System Shock 2 was released in 1999 as a follow up to the critically acclaimed System Shock. The first installment in the series was more adventure based that scare oriented, but critics loved the unique format of the futuristic title. That was, until they’d played System Shock 2, where their expectations were blown away.
In the game players take on the role of soldier G65434-2. The soldier is placed in cryo-stasis on the Rickenbacker, a ship ordered to escort an experimental vessel, the Von Braun, on its maiden voyage. The ships receive a distress signal from Tau Ceti V and must investigate events planet side. What they find are eggs that have had detrimental effects on the people living there. The crew on both ships falls victim to the effects of the eggs as well and the protagonist is awakened from space sleep to deal with the situation. The people on the ship have been turned into zombies called ‘The Many’. The player must team up with SHODAN, the evil computer program from the first game, in order to defeat the horrors of the ship. But don’t get too comfy with her, SHODAN makes no bones about showing gamers how far her ‘alliance’ will go.
The developers of System Shock 2 had a great handle on how to do ambience. Both the score and voice acting are top notch, while the creepy halls of the ship serve to optically disturb. It also doesn’t help that both the player and the protagonist don’t really know who to trust. SHODAN has been listed as one of the greatest villains of all time on several top ten lists and psychological strain is probably the reason for that.
So anyone in the mood for a scary jaunt into unforgiving turf should definitely find a copy of System Shock 2 to spin in their laptop.
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