Looking Glass Studios is cursed. Cursed to create great games that somehow don't sell. The original System Shock was simply ground breaking with a great story, excellent RPG elements and a graphics engine to die for. In the days of Doom it had sloping floors (gasp!) and you could even look up and down. The graphics, story and gameplay put many games before it to shame, and as a result it was showered with colossal review scores and many awards from the gaming press. But it merely crawled off the shelves at retail rather than flying. Similarly, Thief: The Dark Project was praised for practically creating a new genre, the first person stealth game, and being very enjoyable to boot. While it sold slightly better than its predecessor, the public still didn't take to it as much as the reviewers. So looking at their track record, you'd think Looking Glass were insane for working on the sequels to both these only mildly successful games. While Thief 2 is still in development, System Shock 2 is out now. Is it as great as previous Looking Glass Games? We'll let you know in the following pages.
42 years have passed since the insane and unimaginably powerful Artificial Intelligence known as Shodan was annihilated by the same hand that created her (the hacker of the original title). The newly built Von Braun faster-than-light Starship is set to take man to new star systems in a matter of weeks, accompanied by the UNN Rickenbacker, provided by the military for security purposes. However something goes wrong many miles from earth on its maiden voyage. Unknown forces have overtaken mankind's greatest achievement, mutated crew members roam the decks, and guess who happens to be the ship's last hope of being recaptured. With your memory erased and your body kitted out with cybernetic implants, you must discover just what went wrong and sort it out. One against the unknown. Oddly enough, the game actually starts with no sign of Shodan, but then she is on the game box so it is pretty obvious she appears at some point in the game. Rather than spoil it we'll let you discover that one though. It is well worth the effort.