System Shock
System Shock is a video game, developed by Origin and Looking Glass.This innovative title from 1994 is a first person sci-fi/horror game set aboard the Citadel space station, where the player has to fight mutants and robots created by the brilliant yet evil intelligence called SHODAN. Although the game was superficially similar to many other first-person shooters on the market, its detailed environments, engrossing storyline and memorable villain ever have made it one of the most renowned games in its genre. System Shock is often cited as an inspiration for games like Deus Ex and Half-Life. Unfortunately for its fans, it was outsold by more mainstream action games of the time, most notably DOOM.
System Shock 2, the sequel to System Shock, was developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass and released in 1999.
This game takes the tenets of its predecessor, namely to combine a sci-fi/horror action game with role-playing elements, one step further by relying on the modified Thief engine for visuals and atmosphere. The result is one of the scariest and most engrossing first-person games ever made - playing it in a darkened room and with a headset on is not for the faint of heart. Similar to the earlier game, the story takes place in an artificial construct (a huge spacecraft this time) that has been taken over by an alien intelligence, basically turning all the surroundings against the player and providing a nicely paranoid invasion setting (think Half-Life without the optimism).
In both System Shock games, the player character has a number of specific skills that can come into play at various points in the game, depending on how the player decides to create the character and play the game. The character can be customized towards various professions, like a gun-slinging Marine, a hacker/engineer or a psi-corps "wizard". In these aspects, the System Shock series has as much in common with computer role-playing games as with first person shooters. Gameplay furthermore requires more variabilty and alternative problem solving than most first-person shooters, mainly because the combat has been toughened up in comparison to most other games; most guns require special skills, and skill points are hard to come by. Also, guns degrade through use and have to be repaired, either by nanites or special skills. In a typical game, the player will only be able to use about half of the weapons or psychic powers (depending on one's choice of specialization) - this provides a good amount of replayability, and forces the player to think strategically.
A free fan-made add-on pack is available on the net that improves some of the textures and polygon counts that had been kept simple in the original release to ensure high performance speed.