Another factor into the heightening fear here is the incredibly effective use of sound, from the mutters of these guys to the screeching of the security system that sends them my way. They’re slow and straight-forward, but with my bad health they are serious threats. It doesn’t take too long before I’m attacked by a pair of hybrids. Wait, why are there ghosts on a spaceship? A computer monitor exploding made me start, and this ghost suddenly appearing in a hallway did my nerves no favors either. It’s a tested-and-true formula at play here: Isolation, vulnerability, a forced first-person perspective with no peripheral vision, and tons of jump scares. Any assumption that a decade-and-a-half has somehow degraded this title’s effectiveness at scares quickly vanished, even with the weird flipper-people walking around. So let’s talk about how the game is already freaking me out. I slightly increase my endurance and choose a psi power that allows me to heal myself… with my miiiiind. With a few cyber-whatsits points to spend, I find a terminal that allows me to pick a few upgrades for my character.

If first-person shooters taught me anything, it’s that a hunk of reliable steel is always welcome in one’s inventory. It’s like a dude with a slug combover, all rendered with approximately 15 polygons.

Through a window (and closed door) I get a glimpse of one of the weird hybrid guys chasing down a lady and shotgunning her to death. It takes crawling through some ducts, steam, and a slight drop to make it. With both the doctor and the computer yapping at me to get the heck out of the area before it decompressurizes, I make a run for it. You can follow the entire series on the Nostalgia Lane page.) (This is part of my journey playing through System Shock 2.

System shock 2 how many years to train