Irrational has done a stunning job on System Shock 2 and it's the first step in the direction that I want to see games go. System Shock 2 heralds a name brand return to form, but in fact, I would say that there's little in the way of connection between the two games, in terms of feel. Doom became the focus of many cloning attempts in the subsequent years, and only recently has System Shock been imitated. The original System Shock was an odd bird for the time, arriving as it did in the shadow of Doom. System Shock 2 has been in my expectations for many years, a gap of five years between the two actually. I admit that I often like to play the same thing, an example being my recent yearning to play a good FPS (and interesting that the experience of playing Half-Life, which I hated at the time, now seems like nostalgia). We need clones to make money, but clones of what? The subgenre of first person shooters (FPS) is an intense microcosm of this process. But the point lost on such marketing attempts is that somehow, somewhere, the breakthrough must be made. Gaming is a business after all, and the truism seems to be that originality is a wet blanket, something to be avoided at all costs. One of the most hotly debated points in the field of computer games is originality. System Shock 2, Irrational/Looking Glass, 1999
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