This game is so fucking good. Playing it for the first time and

it's a timeless classic, best of the best

I recently beat it, fucking great game. The melee combat is wonky, but the laser rapier kicks ass.
One of my new favorites. Half of the reason I love it so much is the sound design and the writing.
Once you get to a certain point in the plot, the sound work really starts to shine.

Is the first one worth playing? How's the GOG port? I'm still working on my tolerance for retro jank.

It's a good ride, but the game is pretty unbalanced and doesn't feel completely playtested. PSI powers only really exist so you can challenge yourself, the game alternates between leaving you scavenging for ammo and having more ammo than you can possibly use, many abilities aren't worth the investment, the majority of PSI powers are completely worthless, and the game lets you roam free only to give you a railroad plot to follow. Don't get me started on how much the Body of the Many onward sucked.

6-7/10 game, needed some polish.

>>4047613
I can agree some gameplay aspects aren't balanced but I don't think that takes away from the experience. and for me I was always low on ammo so it adds to the game's experience of saving your bullets and knowing when to shoot. and what exactly do you mean by railroad plot? the designers wanted you to go through each level in an ascending order as that was the intention of the game and story. You slowly learn about the ship and the reason for the creatures as you read log files and observations, which are also helped by art direction. I do agree that the game drops in quality near the end, but it's still a memorable experience from all of the levels before. It's similar to Deus Ex where there are some abilities aren't that useful, but it's part of the playstyle. If you want that character to have it that's completely up to you. Deus Ex refined it a bit more because you can create more playstyles with it, even if the gameplay is a "jack of all trades" games many people like to describe it.

>>4047559
The RPG mechanics werent perfect. Like who thought it was a good idea to have repair and maintenance as completely separate stats? And there's too much stuff that literally only needs 1 point invested, with any more being a complete waste.

>>4047821
Yep. It's a good game, but I wish it had some more polish and playtesting before release. Wish someone would make a Source engine version of it for easy modding, last I checked the tools were a pain to deal with.

>>4047821
Also, after a certain point, with enough investment into weapons, and enough money, the game stops having that "survival horror" aspect.

>>4047997
Honestly, I think that's a good thing. For the first half to two thirds of the game, you're scrambling around, struggling to survive, until you finally start being able to fight back. It's satisfying. Plus, it's not like the game doesn't give you plenty of tougher enemies near the end. If the whole game had the same dearth of resources, it'd get dull and frustrating.

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>>4047612
I played the System Shock: Enhanced Edition through first time last year and it was fucking fantastic. Got it from last steam summer sale for like 2 euros. It's similar to System Shock 2, but It's more like a dungeon crawler set in space.

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>mfw one of my friends finally took my advice and played SS2 like I recommended and I got to be there with him watching him play and he really genuinely enjoyed it and told me it was a good game and laughed at the ending just like I did.

Feels really good man.

>>4047559
>litterally
Did you have to use that word?

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I played System Shock 2 and was a little underwhelmed. I appreciated the atmosphere and sound, very cool environment with spooky enemies, but the actual game mechanics? Eh, thought it mostly felt half-baked and poorly balanced.

I played System Shock 1 after 2 and liked it more. It's still not very good mechanically if you try to judge it as an FPS (even for the time), but SS1 has a much stronger sense of exploration and reading logs to gather information about your objectives, puzzles, etc. SS1 is much more ambitious game. The respawning mutants on the maintenance deck get really old fast, though.

>>4048929
and before someone gets mad at me for even mentioning the term "FPS," yes, I know, they're not supposed to be competing with Doom, but they do have action elements and the combat isn't terribly interesting. I liked SS1's weapon selection and progression, though, really made it feel worthwhile to find a hidden area with a cool new gun.

Played it through a few years back, and it's a 9/10 game, extremely atmospheric. The only games that I think surpasses it are Deus Ex and Fallout2, Morrowind is about on the same level of excellence.

What are some beginners tips for this game? Like what skills to invest in and which ones to ignore etc.

>>4052370
Eh just go nuts. There's a bunch of different builds you can go for, but the first time you should just fuck around and try things out.

You can actually ignore maintenance and higher weapon skills - just use pistols and dispose them when they break. There enough of them around, combined with disposable maint tools you'll never be without a gun. I recommend getting the wormblood implant and putting some points into research. That way you can use pools of worms to heal you - pretty handy.
Having the crystal shard is also excellent - it wrecks spiders and kills hybrids in 1 hit usually.

I've played a few builds:
Assault rifle marine - max maintenance and gun skills
Psi guy - max out psi skills and get fun psi powers - run past enemies while you're invisible and fireball everything
Researcher - ignore all the skills except research, get by with disposable pistols - spend the game running between chemical storage rooms and checking chem manifests. End up eating worms to gain health, using crazy alien weapons and knowing the weakness of all enemies...

There's bound to be a few other builds i haven't thought of - get creative. I'm sure a hacker type build would work - hack all the replicators, hack all the security stations, etc.

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>>4048929
>The respawning mutants on the maintenance deck get really old fast, though.

The inviso-mutants are a mere nuisance compared to these fuckers on the Reactor level.